My mission is to educate people about what is in our food. Food ingredient labels can be confusing, and hard to figure out what all those ingredients are. No judgements, no suggestions on what to eat, just cold hard facts about what is in our food, what it does. I plan to compile ingredients lists from national food. And find definitions of the ingredients that are hard to say, let alone, figure out what it is exactly.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Autolyzed Yeast Extract

The general method for making yeast extract for food products on a commercial scale is to add sodium chloride (salt) to a suspension of yeast, making the solution hypertonic, which leads to the cells shrivelling up; this triggers autolysis, in which the yeast self-destructs. The dying yeast cells are then heated to complete their breakdown, after which the husks (yeast with thick cell walls) are separated. Removing the cell walls concentrates the flavors and changes the texture.